Technology is changing the way we work and the jobs we do. Will artificial intelligence and robots relieve us of humdrum tasks, making our working lives easier, or will they take our jobs away altogether? As part of a new series called the Future of Work, we look at the growing popularity of "daigou" - Chinese expats who buy consumer goods for people back home in China. Sandra Lee describes herself as part of a "global phenomenon". A 37-year-old Chinese expat who lives in Central Coast, Australia, she makes money by selling Australian goods to people back in China.

Accurate demand forecasts can help on-line retail organizations better plan their supply-chain processes. The challenge, however, is the large number of associative factors that result in large, non-stationary shifts in demand, which traditional time series and regression approaches fail to model. In this paper, we propose a Neural Network architecture called AR-MDN, that simultaneously models associative factors, time-series trends and the variance in the demand. We first identify several causal features and use a combination of feature embeddings, MLP and LSTM to represent them. We then model the output density as a learned mixture of Gaussian distributions. The AR-MDN can be trained end-to-end without the need for additional supervision. We experiment on a dataset of an year's worth of data over tens-of-thousands of products from Flipkart. The proposed architecture yields a significant improvement in forecasting accuracy when compared with existing alternatives.

OK, I'll say it: Buying clothes online still sucks. Unless you're buying something from a brand you already own and know the sizing of, it's nearly impossible to get the fit right on the first try. This is why people often buy two sizes and return one, or just skip clothing e-commerce all together and head into the store to try it on in person. The result is either high shipping and return costs for the retailer or a missed sale entirely -- basically a lose-lose situation. Enter Savitude, a startup that wants to make sure the clothes you buy will not only fit you, but also look good with your body shape.

Amid a world-wide crisis in the bee industry, two companies have formed a joint venture to produce honey sustainably in the UAE. With summer flowers out and in full bloom bees are finding lots of pollen for their hives. SAN FRANCISCO -- Birds do it. Now even educated Walmart drones may do it. The world's largest retailer has applied for a patent for drone pollinators to make up for the decline in bees and other insects that fertilize crops and make much of the food the company sells possible.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is getting way ahead of itself. Venture capital is being thrown at anything that claims to have it. Startups are using it as a buzzword that they have to cram into their business idea just to sound like they are on the cutting edge of technology. They say AI is going to take over the world and that it will change the world at a pace faster than anything we've ever seen. Recently, I saw an article about an online retailer that claimed to use AI to make people purchase more often because they could intelligently recommend products to the user.

Walmart Inc's patent filings hint that it may see a future where farmers use its drones to not only spot crop problems but selectively apply chemicals or even disperse pollen to bring shoppers the freshest and cheapest food possible. The world's largest retailer applied for six patents last year on drones that aim to prevent damage to crops, control pest attacks on farms and cross-pollinate plants, according to U.S. Patents and Trademark Office documents that were made public last week and seen by Reuters. Groceries make up 56 percent of the company's total revenue and Walmart may see drone technology as one way to get food from farms to store shelves faster and more cheaply to compete with Amazon.com Walmart Inc's patent filings hint that it may see a future where farmers use its drones to not only spot crop problems but selectively apply chemicals or even disperse pollen to bring shoppers the freshest and cheapest food possible. In one application, Walmart seeks to patent a system that would use drones to identify crop-damaging pests and then dispense insecticides on the critters.

Having an eCommerce platform for your business means competing with the giant online retailers in the marketplace. While you may not have their resources, you can use similar technologies to make your company efficient and highly visible in a very crowded playing field. And the way to do it is by using artificial intelligence or AI -- delivered through the cloud. The great thing about AI is it has become integral in the way many businesses operate and the way consumers interact with digital touch points. And according to HubSpot, 63 percent of customers don't even know they have been using AI technologies.

Almost a third (32%) of consumers surveyed globally by PwC plan to buy an AI device including robots or automated assistants, with retailers watching closely as'voice commerce' develops in the home. The findings are published today in PwC's Global Consumer Insights survey, which assesses the shopping behaviour, habits and expectations of over 22,000 consumers in 27 countries. The study reports that 10% of respondents already own artificial intelligence (AI) devices, such as robots and automated personal assistants like Amazon Echo or Google Home, and 32% said they plan to buy one. Both consumer and retailer habits and offerings still need time to adapt however, to make the most of the new voice commerce channel. Interest in the devices is strongest amongst consumers in emerging economies including China, Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand.

Over the past few years, technology has seen a significant shift from cyclical, invention-led spending on point solutions to investments targeting customer-driven, end-to-end value. The next wave of disruption and productivity improvements is here, which means a huge opportunity for digital-focused enterprises – if you are following the right roadmap. Technology trends have significant potential over the next few years. Establishing a digital platform will not only set the stage for business innovation to provide competitive advantage, but it will also create new business models that will change the way we do business. Technology trends in 2018 will lay the foundation for the maturity of innovative technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning and will prepare both businesses and shoppers to be ready for their consumption.

This article first appeared in the Winter 2017 issue of The Record. Gone are the days where customers visiting US-based home improvement store Lowe's had to flick through multiple swatches of paints and materials, or wander round the store looking at appliances. Now, they simply populate their Pinterest boards with images of their ideal kitchens, send it to Lowe's and the retailer uses analytics and machine learning technologies to find relevant products in its inventory to produce relevant kitchen concepts. When they get to the store, customers use a Microsoft HoloLens headset to finalise a holographic representation of their newly designed kitchen in real scale by switching between different colours and finishes and moving appliances. While Lowe's is somewhat of a pioneer, this is just the start of what's likely to become the standard for retail customer experiences, predicts Pinar Salk, Microsoft's industry solutions director for retail.